Back in Time with the UFC Encyclopedia

Looking back at history is something a lot of individuals do, trying to recall memories from the past good or bad and putting them on paper. Many facts are drawn up and events are plentiful. With the UFC Encyclopedia there is so much information that you can’t help, but continuing to turn the page.

Tom Gerbasi who is the author of the UFC Encyclopedia really displayed more information about the company than you can imagine. Starting way back (before the Zuffa era) with the first show on Nov 12th, 1993, until UFC 131, it goes way past the basic facts of each event.

Instead of just sharing the results of each card and moving on, Gerbasi really concentrated on reliving the events like you were sitting cage side. Many diehard fans of the sport and of the company probably know more about past events than the casual fan, but that’s what makes this book that much better. Whatever category you fit in Gerbasi made it a strong point to bring in new fans as well as keep the past fans interested.

Being 400 pages with full color photos on each page is something that really drew me into reading the book cover to cover. The images of the old posters really show where the UFC has come from the early nineties to the current day. With so many events going on almost every week the book had a deadline and hopefully in 10 years another book is made to include that much more information. Covering the UFC past and present because there are so many back stories of each fighter and personality and many were covered in this book.

Another great addition to the book is the bios of all the people involved of the sport from in-ring announcers, to television broadcasters. It was has brought where the company is today and revolutionized the sport and brings the fans back every Saturday night.

A thing that I haven’t seen in previous books that I’ve read is the concentration on the well-known show “The Ultimate Fighter”. The breakdown is detailed of each season and has a nice little summary of what events took place throughout the training and fights. The reality show that put the first inkling of MMA going main-stream and Gerbasi highlighted it nicely.

I have read other encyclopedias in the past that have gone the bland route of just putting a bunch of text and facts on each page and not really giving a personal side of things. With Gerbasi he really tried to capture the moments from each event and explore other situations that weren’t known. He worked countless hours on this book and the result of this book really shows with a unique way of displaying the facts and information.

The UFC Encyclopedia would make a great gift for the upcoming holidays and any MMA fan (hardcore or not) would have hours of information to obtain. The book can be purchased from Amazon or the UFC Store and the cost is 49.95.

Editors Note: I have 4 books to giveaway that DK Publishing was kind enough to send over. I will be giving these away on my twitter account @tedgruber. Follow me in the coming days for your chance to win.